In the last two decades there has been a sharp growth in the numbers of people “expelled” from their homes, villages, life projects, and support systems; they include the displaced, the abjectly poor, workers destroyed by their jobs, as well as surplus populations housed in ghettos and slums. Their numbers are far larger than the new middle classes of India and China. Dr Sassen argues that this may be symptomatic of a systemic transformation taking us into a new phase of global capitalism.

The 3rd session of the NOMAD SEMINARS IN HISTORIOGRAPHY will be held in Ankara at Middle East Technical University on November 9, 2012.
The session will focus on “Narratives of Travel Writing and Architectural History”.
Please check the following blogs for more information:

Designed for photographers, artists and urbanists whose work addresses notions of urban space and culture the international Summer School provides a highly intensive two week practical and theoretical training in key aspects of urban visual practice. The course aims to offer participants a wide range of relevant skills resulting in the production of a photography portfolio drawn from London’s urban environments combined with a collective final exhibition.

The programme has been developed in collaboration with Urban Encounters and the Centre for Urban and Community Research (CUCR). The course will be taught by tutors from Goldsmith’s Sociology Department and the international MA in Photography and Urban Cultures. The programme draws on the advanced theoretical, research and practical image-making specialisms of key practitioners in the field. Summer School tutors include: Paul Halliday (MA in Photography and Urban Cultures Convener), Beatriz Véliz Argueta (Coordinator/Goldsmiths), Les Back (Goldsmiths), Caroline Knowles (CUCR Director), Mandy Lee Jandrell (Goldsmiths), Peter Coles (Oxford/ Goldsmiths), Alex Rhys-Taylor (Goldsmiths), Manuel Vazquez (Goldsmiths), Michael Wayne Plant (Goldsmiths), Laura Cuch (Goldsmiths) and Jasmine Cheng (Goldsmiths).

The programme will explore how the practice of urban image making informs the development of a reflexive and critical research perspective and will include assignments and guided fieldtrips focusing on (1) urban landscape, (2) street photography and (3) material objects.

Application deadline: June 3rd, 2011
For more information: www.gold.ac.uk/cucr/summer%20school/

Jerome Krase, Ph.D.
Emeritus and Murray Koppelman Professor
Brooklyn College
The City University of New York

DPU summerLab seeks to establish a unique rotating platform for in situ immersion and experimentation in urban environments where the boundaries of spatial agency are actively tested, hinging upon critical analysis and spatial knowledge development targeting undergraduate and graduate students as well as emerging professionals in design, architecture and planning. The workshops offer a vital testing ground for the resolution of spatial interventions with local socio-economic trends alongside embedded political contexts.

Parsons The New School for Design
Thursdays at 6 p.m.
The Keller Auditorium, 66 Fifth Avenue, New York

To celebrate the launch of its two new graduate programs focused on urban transformation, Parsons The New School for Design has organized “In the Urban Crisis,” a lecture series featuring leading voices shaping the global dialogue about city development. The series highlights core themes of the MS in Design and Urban Ecologies [ http://www.newschool.edu/parsons/ms-design-urban-ecology/ ], led by organizer Miguel Robles-Duran, and MA in Theories of Urban Practice [http://www.newschool.edu/parsons/ma-theories-urban-research/ ], led by Aseem Inam, which explore the ways cities are shaped and reshaped through planning, public policy, development, and architecture.

“In the Urban Crisis” is a free public event series running on select Thursday evenings at 6 p.m. throughout the spring. All talks will take place in the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, 66 Fifth Avenue.

Speakers include:

– Paula Z. Segal (Feb. 23), a lawyer and activist collaborating on the Occupy Wall Street project #whoOWNSspace.
– Tom Angotti (March 1), professor in the Hunter College Department of Urban Affairs and Planning.
– Don Mitchell (March 8), distinguished professor of Geography at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.
– Ana Méndez de Andés (March 29) a Madrid-based urban activist.
– Andrew Ross (April 5), a writer and professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University.
– Erik Swyngedouw (April 19), a professor of Geography at the University of Manchester’s School of Environment and Development.
– Jeanne van Heeswijk (April 26), a Dutch artist and winner of Creative Time’s 2011 Lenore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change.
– Pelin Tan (May 3), an Istanbul-based sociologist and art historian.

Preceding the March 1 event, from 4:30-5:30, there will be an information session on the MA in Theories of Urban Practice and MS in Design and Urban Ecologies programs. http://www.newschool.edu/parsons/grad-events/

For more information on the “In the Urban Crisis” Series, please visit the School of Design Strategies (SDS) blog: http://sds.parsons.edu/

Pelin Tan
www.tanpelin.blogspot.com

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Africa is experiencing an unprecedented urban growth. It is estimated that between 2005 and 2030, the urban population of sub-Saharan Africa will double and more than half of the total population will be urbanised.
While African cities become more and more important internationally, as nodal economic centres of production and exchange, the rapid and often uncontrolled urban expansion poses many challenges. Existing urban infrastructures are usually inadequate to respond to the demographic pressure, adding precariousness to urban livelihoods. Informal settlements are growing and governments often don’t have the resources and capacities to cope with these challenges and development interventions often prove to be inadequate to address the many socio-political and economic issues.Continue reading SEMINAR: African City seminar series, SOAS, London

Dialogues in Development: African perspectives on urban development planning.
A three part seminar series run by the Development Planning Unit, UCL.
In the next decade two-thirds of Africa’s population growth will be urban. Although Africa has the lowest proportion of continental urbanization, with about 38% of its population living in urban areas, after Asia, it is “expected to have the largest urban population growth of any region, with about 200 million urban dwellers.” (McGranahan et al, 2009). In this unique series of three dialogues, Susan Parnell addresses ways of understanding the enormous changes to cities occurring in sub-saharan African countries. Elaborating on the theoretical and ethical challenges posed by unprecedented urbanisms in Africa, and working at the interface of theory and practice in the global South, she reflects on how equipped we are to face the urban planning futures.
Part 3. Urban planning futures in dialogue. A panel discussion.
The final seminar will be a panel discussion addressing issues in African urban research and management that emerge from the previous two seminars.Date: 21 Feb 17h30-19h00 Venue: 118 Chandler House, 2 Wakefield Street, London, WC1N 1PF
Prof Susan Parnell is visiting Leverhulme Professor at UCL. She is Professor of Geography at the University of Cape Town. She has published extensively and sits on the board of many urban studies journals. She holds many professional and advisory appointments and works at the interface of theory and practice. She is a founder member of the African Centre for Cities, UCT.

16th February 5-6pm
Governance in a Brazilian favela: seeing the state in everyday urban space
Dr Jeff Garmany (Brazil Institute, King’s College London)

1st March 5-6pm
Sensoria and Sensibility: Semiotics of Odour
Dr Alex Rhys-Taylor (Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London)

12th March 6-8pm
After the Neoliberal City, The Cities Group Annual Lecture, Edmond J. Safra Lecture Theatre
Prof Neil Smith (Director of Centre for Place, Culture and Politics, City University New York)

15th March 5-6pm
Planning for Housing in an Era of Localism
Pam Alexander (Former Chief Executive of South East England Development Agency)

Unless stated otherwise, events take place in the Pyramid Room: Geography Dept., 4th floor, Strand Campus, King’s College and will be followed by a wine reception in the Geography Social Space.

(In)Flexible Cities (The Cambridge CRASSH City Seminar) meets on Tuesdays (4 times per term) at the new CRASSH Building (7 West Road, Sidgwick Site, Cambridge) from 5pm until 7pm. All are welcome.

Program: (In)Flexible Cities
Cities are as immobile as they are restless. Revolutions, disasters and visionary masterplans can transform cities, but they can also leave urban fabrics practically untouched. Events of the past year alone have made plain the extent to which dramatic change and stubborn continuity constitute interdependent urban phenomena. In 2011/2012, the City Seminar combines disciplinary perspectives, intellectual themes and geographical areas to examine the relationships and tensions between flux and stasis in the city.
For more information and recordings of previous meetings, please see our blog:in-flexiblecities.blogspot.com

Kinshasa on Film: Between Dystopia and Utopia http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1955/Tuesday, 31 Jan 2012
Filip De Boeck (KU Leuven) and Koen Van Synghel . Part of the City Seminar series. NB: This event will begin at 4.15pm

Since the 1980’s, Turkey, in particular Istanbul, has seen unprecedented transformations with the influences of rapid urbanization, the emergence of consumerism and the “opening” up to new configurations of public space and images. While Turkey’s accession to the E.U. remains elusive, and the country’s role on the global economic and political stages is being debated, images and imaginings of Istanbul have acquired new and complex significance. Declared a “Cultural Capital of Europe” in 2010, a number of civic initiatives, municipal “urban renewal” (i.e. gentrification) projects, and cultural events have literally and figuratively “re-oriented,” reshaped and repackaged Istanbul for consumption on local and global levels.

Academic content includes lectures addressing:

* Space, Power, and Politics in Contemporary Turkey
* Migration, Globalization, and Urban Transformation in Istanbul
* Civilizing Istanbul: City, Spectacle, and the Making of a Capital of Culture
* Istanbul through the Ages
* Imagining Istanbul: Tourism and the Consumption of Culture
* Istanbul in Literature, Art, Public, and Private Spaces
* Turkish Foreign Relations: Bridge or Barrier?
* Religion, Politics, and Social Change in Turkey

Funding Assistance Available: Ping Faculty Development Fellowship awards in the amount of $1000-1500 are available for 10-15 International Faculty Development Seminar participants per year.

Questions about the seminars or the Ping Fellowship awards can be directed to either Teri Coviello, tcoviello@ciee.org , or Cait Vaughan, cvaughan@ciee.org

Cait Vaughan
Program Coordinator, International Faculty Development Seminars
CIEE: Council on International Educational Exchange
Portland, ME
www.ciee.org/ifds